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So, here we are, one day into the Palin Era of American politics. I’ve been reading a lot of the online commentary, and I have two thoughts.

First, some of it is kind of bizarre. Exhibit A for me is Michelle Cottle’s first take over at TNR, in which she focuses on Palin’s looks — not to say that she’s attractive, but rather that she’s “an exceedingly delicate, feminine looking” woman and a “fragile flower.” Right: the basketball-playing, road-race-running, wilderness-camping, moose-hunting fragile flower. What was Cottle expecting, Fairy Hardcastle?

But second and more important, I have been somewhat taken aback at the hot blasts of anger from the Left, and more generally from likely Obama voters, and from wherever it is that Andrew Sullivan is properly located. And even in the comments on this here blog, usually populated by near-pacifists. What’s up with that? If you’re an Obama supporter and you think Palin is an absurdly bad choice whose inexperience and incompetence will rapidly be revealed in the upcoming campaign, shouldn’t you be laughing rather than seething?

It’s a different story if, like our friend Freddie, you’re pissed off at the general cynicism of the whole campaign, but if you’re for Obama and you have little but contempt for Palin, it’s time for high-fives and toasts. Isn’t it?

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I get the impression that there’s a feeling out there of two combined instincts:

1) This is grossly cynical.
2) It could just work.

Personally, I think I’d subscribe to both. I’m not American, so it doesn’t really matter what I think, I don’t have a vote in it. It seems to me that Obama has a lot of flaws and limitations. And, yes, there’s not that much experience there. But at least the primaries and the election so far have served, however inadequately, as a sort of proving ground. The Palin candidacy, however, feels like something drawn on the back of a cigarette packet at relatively short notice in an attempt to win news cycles and does not really become a man who is standing on his integrity and who had previously stated unambiguously that he would be making his Veep pick on the basis of the candidate having experience, offering sound counsel and bringing to the table a stellar record of public service.

Even Noah admits that Governor Palin is simply not ready for the very top and that if McCain popped off or was somehow incapacitated in the early stages of his presidency, she wouldn’t represent a credible replacement. And that’s the case for the defence. What does that say? Not much good, surely.

You can always find anger and invective on the internet if you go looking for it. You can also find reason. When you say the “left” are reacting thusly, it’s just a huge genralization, both of “the left” and what “the left” is supposedly saying. And about Andrew Sullivan, he is definitly angry, but not at Palin, but McCain, for what he sees as a completly cynical betrayal of everthing McCain said he was supposed to stand for. I agree with that take. I don’t feel real angry about it, because that just seems like politics as usual. But it was a lame move, which has nothing to do with who Palin is.

As the mother of a child with Down syndrome, I cried when I turned on the AM news heard a plane from Alaska had flown to Dayton the night before the VP announcement. I came across Palin’s name and bio a few months ago.

I’m a disillusioned conservative who convassed for Obama and voted for him in the primary. I like him. I have a close relative whose biography has much in common with Obama’s. After one of his troubling comments about unwanted pregnancy and your post on why you couldn’t vote for either candidate, I got on the fence.

I’m a white, female, middle-aged suburban Ohio Anabaptist/evangelical. (In half an hour, Obama is speaking within two miles of our neighborhood.) Palin’s presence on the ticket may get my vote. She’s demonstrated the kind of strength and compassion I value in a leader, with the way she’s handled the blessing of her youngest.
* * * ** *
The discussions of Palin I hear on the news seem disparaging to motherhood and what it takes to be a mother. They give her no credit for the understanding and perception that comes with it.
I’ve heard several career women who now stay home to raise their children say it’s much harder than what they did in the corporate world. The pundits must think we stay-at-home moms are dumb as rocks.

“cw, I don’t think I said “Everyone on the Left is angry about the Palin pick,” did I?”

It sounds like it. “…But second and more important, I have been somewhat taken aback at the hot blasts of anger from the Left, and more generally from likely Obama voters.”

“hot blasts of anger from the left” and “likely Obama voters.“No qualifiers there, just the left and obama voters.

Like I say, you can always find hot blasts of anger from people commenting about politics. It tells us nothing and so is not worth mentioning. If you think there is a huge amount of anger, way more than just the normal background anger, then it is something to talk about, but then seems like you should offer some proof. Do some kind of survey or something. Reporting on an unusual event asks for evidence.

I say this, not because I think you are a partisan crackpot or anything, but the “right/left are so angry, look at the comments on Kos/Redstate trope” is to my mind a really common distractor that people throw up there to “prove” that the other side are bad people. I’m not saying that that is what you are doing—you are probably just commenting on something that you have noticed. It just happens that it falls into a category of bad faith speech.

see brookheiser’s comment in the corner. let’s stipulate that palin is less qualified to be an executive on the national stage than obama. even if you stipulate that, it’s pretty obvious why the palin choice can energize conservatives on purely visceral and identitarian groups by explicit analogy to obama.

“The discussions of Palin I hear on the news seem disparaging to motherhood and what it takes to be a mother.”

For all that I’m distressed at the Palin pick, I’ll back you on this, at least to the degree that focusing on Palin’s motherhood status is dirty pool and very unbecoming. I’m not convinced that parenthood is a positive plus for political office, but it’s grubby to hold it against a candidate unless it can be demonstrated to have had a negative impact on their job performance. The Dems would be foolish to go down this route, partly because I believe it would be electorally counter-productive but mostly because it would be wrong.

Part of it is anger at the sheer cynicism of the choice. I know, this is politics so cynicism is a given. But for gods sake, this is the most powerful country in the world with great and serious responsibilities. For McCain to choose someone who is not even the in the top 500 qualified candidates in his own party for such an important position just makes me angry as an American, not as a partisan.

I’m neither laughing or seething; I’m merely appalled. It doesn’t matter what party I represent, the VP nominee should demand respect for their intellect. The retired security guard who lives next door to me has the same views that Palin has, but in no way do those views qualify him for nomination. What concerns me is that the term “loose cannon” seems a more apt description of McCain than maverick. This was NOT a thoughtful decision that considered the future of Palin, the party, or the country. If she has such a bright future, he may well have destroyed it. If he becomes unable to serve as President and she takes over, the Party may well take a hit for his poor decision-making, and I won’t even begin to talk about what it would mean for the country. In addition, I have two sons, both selective service age, and I’m now nervous, very nervous, about McCain’s long-term vision, thoughtfulness, ability to make measured decisions, and consult with others. Frankly, he’s beginning to seem remarkably shortsighted and shallow.

There are two reasons I vote for a leader: 1) I agree with his positions, and 2) I think he’ll be a good leader and make good decisions for the country. I’ve had growing doubts about his leadership abilities, and I’m just now coming to realize that he’s lost my support, because of what seems more and more to me bizarre, self-serving decision-making.

“And about Andrew Sullivan, he is definitly angry, but not at Palin, but McCain, for what he sees as a completly cynical betrayal of everthing McCain said he was supposed to stand for. I agree with that take.”

Here’s why I don’t agree with that take…it’s bordering on embarassment. Sullivan is pretty much insinuating that McCain will die in office. That’s the ONLY way you can make the claim against such a VP choice. Is it possible? Sure. Is it probable? Who the eff knows? Reagan was re-elected at 74. There are Senators still serving that are older than McCain. If Andrew Sullivan was really concerned about McCain’s age liability, why the heck did he support him early on in the nomination???? Isn’t he just gonna die anyways?

Was Al Gore ready to be President if Clinton died? What about John Edwards, the VP choice of the last Democrat Sullivan voted for? Wasn’t he only a Senator for 2 years? Who the hell defines what the limits of knowledge/experience are for a VP? He says Pawlenty would have been a better choice. I think that is splitting hairs, no? If McCain was 62 instead of 72, would Sullivan still be as pissed off? That’s rhetorical, because of course he would be.

Note to Andrew: Joe Biden is 65 with a medical history of a brain aneurysm. So he’ll probably die too. But if Obama dies first and then Biden dies…Nancy Pelosi is our President. See what I did there?

In (people like) Sullivan’s world….NOTHING would have been acceptable. McCain is not acceptable. Republicans are unacceptable. Romney, Huckabee, Lieberman, et al would not have been acceptable. (Something tells me that if Obama had picked Hillary, Sullivan would have found some way to praise Obama for his political shrewdeness, played off her role as VP, dismissed the “heartbeat away” role of the Veep…and doen a lot of backtracking on his Hillary-bashing – which I enjoy!)

He voted for Kerry in ’04, and was on the Obama bandwagon before the oxen left Dodge. And yes that is a reference to Oregon Trail. Of course he’s mad. McCain could win. And – in his mind – it’s all because of a bunch of mindless, stupid, Christ-crazed, simpletons who love war, love guns, and hate gays. He despises most Repbulicans and the GOP, and for good reason. I actually agree his most of his rationale on that. But his Olbermann-esque Obama-do-wrong, McCain-is-Bush-you-idiots-are-all-going-to-hell is really, really, getting to be pointless.

cw, I don’t think the distinction between “I’ve seen anger on the Left” and “Everyone on the Left is angry” is an especially subtle one, but apparently you do. So let’s try this again: as I scanned a number of left-leaning and Obama-supporting blogs, I was surprised by how much anger I saw. You don’t think I should have been surprised, but there you have it. I’m sure this is not to my credit — like my failure to provide a spreadsheet along with this post.

So let’s say, for the sake of argument, that there are only three supporters of Obama who have shown anger at the Palin pick. Heck, let’s say two. My question remains: why would any Obama supporter who thinks the Palin pick a ridiculous one be angry about that? Anthony and Joseph provided interesting answers to this question, for which I thank them.

I know this makes me horribly naive and that all politicians do whatever is necessary to win, but I genuinely believe that if people were objectively exposed to the positions of the two candidates and this campaign were about issues instead of character assassination then the democrats would win.

The fact that McCain might win because he has effectively torn apart Obama’s character and because he made a cynical purely political choice in his Palin makes me insane. It’s as if he doesn’t believe he is right on the issues, and the fact that he might now win, because of shrewd politics not because of good policy, is an outrage. It will be because he effectively manipulated the American people and played the game better and not because he is right.

My question at this point is whether a two-party democracy can ever offer meaningful alternatives to voters. My complaint with Democratic party leadership for a long while, even back to the Clinton years, is that they refuse to make their party into a meaningful alternative to Republicanism. Who can blame people for voting for Authentic Party A, even if Authentic Party A has wrongheaded policy positions, when the other option is to vote for Pale Imitation of Authentic Party A? That’s why I wanted Howard Dean to win in 2004. I imagine we would have gotten our clocks cleaned. But we liberals would have had someone to vote for who actually represented our interests. That’s also why I remain proud of the Lamont campaign, failed though it was. The anti-war left took our stand and took our best shot.

With Obama, I acknowledge that a lot of the appeal has been hype. But I do believe that there is a genuine opportunity in him to have a genuinely liberal executive. It’s true that his policy platform is pretty much the old-hat Democratic party line. But then I largely agree with that line, and in temperament and character Obama is a liberal in a way that John Kerry, Al Gore, and Bill Clinton simply aren’t.

That’s why the Biden pick has depressed me so much. Not because I disagree with Joe Biden on a lot of things, policy-wise, but because he represents the wink to the old guard, the politics as usual. Nominating Joe Biden for the vice presidential slot is a genuflection to the DNC, and the school of thought in the Democratic party that you win elections by giving up on the project of liberalism.

And so I was already cross when I heard about Palin, and I laughed out loud, when I heard it. I really did. As cynical and calculating as it is, it’s also perfect, Obama’s white woman conservative match. Perfect.

If you only have two options and they’re the same option, you’ve got no choice at all. And it’s not even really a question of conservatism and liberalism; it’s the simple fact that if the people who control the wheels of power can make the two choices overlap as much as possible, they can ensure that whoever gets chosen will tow the right line.

Here is another attempt to answer the question honestly. Many of us on the left feel, very sincerely, that one of the central flaws of the Bush administration has been that they just didn’t take the idea of good governance seriously. We have been consistently astounded by the degree to which Bush and his administration was willing to hire and promote people who were grossly underqualified for the scope of their jobs and more-or-less incompetent in their performance. (At best, some of these people were focused narrowly on advancing a few hot-button principles of conservative ideology. Many were just truly not competent.)

I think this is the intuition that is getting funneled into the “lack of experience” charge against Palin. It’s not really the fact that she has little experience in political office. If that were it, the charge of hypocrisy against Obama supporters might make some sense. It’s that, as far as anyone can tell, she has taken almost no interest in — and has little knowledge about — the big issues of national scope facing America. You can read an interview where they ask her about Iraq and it’s clear that she knows about as much about the conflict as your average person on the street does. We’re fighting some people over in Iraq, we should try to “win” and eventually leave. Now, this is not a critique of her as a person. She’s a politician from Alaska, a remote state where the issues that seem pressing to someone (even someone in state government) are just not all that similar to the big issues that we on the left see as facing the nation as a whole. Putting aside the fact that a legislator in Illinois is just naturally going to be faced with a set of issues more representative of the nation as a whole (and this is no slur whatsoever against Alaska or its people), it is really beyond dispute that Obama has been interested in the big issues of national scope for a long time. So the “experience” comparison in terms of bare years of public service is just beside the point.

Palin’s apparent use of her office to avenge a petty personal grudge just feeds right into this sense.

So that’s where some of the anger comes from. We’re tired of the country we love being put in the hands of people who give almost no indication that they have ever been interested in — let alone capable of — solving serious problems at the national level.

My husband just came back from the Obama-Biden rally with a souvenir T-shirt. He said Obama’s not talking about Hope and Change any more. He’s making a bunch of specific promises.
Obama said he’s been on the campaign trail a long time, 18 months. He’s been in every state. Except Alaska. And now it looks like he’s going to have to go up there. (got some laughs)

The biden pick didn’t matter as much as the Palin pick because McCain is 72 and a cancer survivor. And because he said over aqnd over that experience matters in this dangerous world.

Alan, that is just a pet peeve if mine. It’s a propoganda tactic, for lack of a better word. I’m not saying you were propogandizing, it just struck a nerve. An enormous portion of our politics consists of dueling propaganda campaigns—and I mean this literally—and it drives me crazy.

Alan, you asked a good question, but I think you should consider the premise underlying it. The question is premised on the idea that partisan political considerations are primary, and the good of the country is not. If one reverses those priorities, then it makes complete sense as to why people on the left would not be gleeful but rather angry at a ploy that might succeed politically but harm the country. The vice president has to be ready to be the president because we never know whether a president will die. Reagan was almost killed very early in his presidency. Who is to say it can’t happen to McCain? This might sound naive, but I think Obama’s appeal lies in the sense that he’s contesting this type of politics—at least in rhetoric, and hopefully in reality. That is why I, a conservative, Christian, Mars Hill Tapes subscriber, am supporting him.

Alan, here’s one answer why people are angry… we’re helpless. We can’t make these people better than they are or different than they are. And in this case, we’re stuck with the people who have the money and backing to run, and then the people who they pick to join them. Anger is a common human response to helplessness. Perhaps if you’ll think back about the last times you felt anger, you may see that this might be correct.

“The biden pick didn’t matter as much as the Palin pick because McCain is 72 and a cancer survivor.”

Whereas Biden will be 66 in a few months and has had at least two brain aneurysms. So if, God forbid, something were to happen to Obama, the country would be run by a guy who could drop dead any second.

“Many of us on the left feel, very sincerely, that one of the central flaws of the Bush administration has been that they just didn’t take the idea of good governance seriously.”

I doubt that anybody on the left sincerely feels that. It’s asking a lot to expect anybody who has lived through both the Clinton and the Bush years to believe that the left believes anything sincerely. The time to stop the crimes of the Bush administration was during the Clinton administration.

“Whereas Biden will be 66 in a few months and has had at least two brain aneurysms. So if, God forbid, something were to happen to Obama, the country would be run by a guy who could drop dead any second.”

Obama is the inexperienced blank slate candidate for the Stuff White People Like crowd.

Palin is the inexperienced blank slate candidate for the people whom the Stuff White People Like crowd despises.

They both appear to be extremely talented politicians, with Palin having the objective advantage of successfully attacking her own party’s corruption, while Obama served as a see-no-evil facilitator for the notorious corruption of the Illinois Democrats. I’m sure Obama is a better prose stylist, however.

And there’s no way he could possibly die for any other reason. I mean, you’re talking about worst case scenarios here, so I’m assuming it’s okay to talk about the possibility that Obama might die in office without rising again three days later. (Did you see the story about those racist wackjobs with rifles in Denver? Think there might be any more like them out there?) And then we’d have a senior citizen with a ticking time bomb in his brain running the show.

I’m not saying it’s going to happen, or that I want it to happen. But it’s possible. And if we’re going to take a hard look at the possibility of Palin being a heartbeat away from the presidency, why shouldn’t we take a hard look at Biden as well?

If the vice president dies, the president can appoint a new one, to be confirmed by Congress. So, while it is certainly possible that Biden could die and then Obama could die before his replacement is confirmed, that seems much less likely than a 72 year old man with a history of cancer dying.

“If the vice president dies, the president can appoint a new one, to be confirmed by Congress. So, while it is certainly possible that Biden could die and then Obama could die before his replacement is confirmed, that seems much less likely than a 72 year old man with a history of cancer dying.”

No, my question was: What if Obama dies, leaving us with Biden and his history of aneurysms? Again, as long as we’re talking worst-case.

The local Democratic ticket lined up to speak before Obama got on stage last night.
How seriously is Palin being taken? Her lack of experience was referred to by Carney, who is running for one of 88 Ohio House positions.

She was not mentioned by candidates for Ohio AG or U.S. Senate, and only in the oblique Alaska reference, by Obama.

So, pointing out links between Obama and people like Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, William Ayers: That’s dirty politics. Pointing out that Palin was endorsed by a crummy politician: They’re best friends.

liberal japonicus commenting at Obsidian Wings: “if McCain/Palin become a reality, she is going to be used. As much as I am embarassed for Palin, I’m embarassed for evangelical Christians more.”

Two evident reasons for Palin’s picking; first, she is a practiced advocate for drilling in the ANWR.
Second, her appeal to Evangelical women, who can be imagined pushing a waffling or indifferent husband firmly into the Republican camp, and thus punching above their weight.
Palin is someone with whom Evangelical women will be happy to identify. By and large I expect the firings will be seen by them as instrumentally just, and what they would have readily done if in her shoes.
I will not say that I know members of the demographic well; but I do know some and have known many, in my family, and in the church in which I grew up, a mid-size faithfully Evangelical congregation and (Dan Quayle was a member before his appointment as Veep) reliably conservative.
Those women will be overjoyed to vote for one they see as their own.
So she may be able to gather in the Evangelical base, who were open to feeling neglected.

But as LJ in the quote above says, it’s a cynical manipulative move (‘of course’, everyone nods) insulting the hope for integrity and irenic grace as witnesses to the Gospel held by ‘the target audience’.

It could be interpreted as an act of a narcissistic anarchic nihilist. Given the mercurial ease with which the Senator slips from one position to the next (never more malign than his move from opposing to approving torture) such an exegesis might be seen as well-founded.
Obviously, that’s how I see it.

“It could be interpreted as an act of a narcissistic anarchic nihilist. Given the mercurial ease with which the Senator slips from one position to the next (never more malign than his move from opposing to approving torture) such an exegesis might be seen as well-founded.
Obviously, that’s how I see it.”

I do not think it especially prudent to offer diagnoses of people you know only through the newspapers (most particularly decidedly eccentric diagnoses).

It is indeed eccentric in the US today to see advocacy of torture as anarchic nihilism.
That is indeed my eccentric view; never more strongly held than when faithful Christians advocate torture, as I have seen them do.
It is a pact with the Devil; thus, anarchic nihilism.
I’m open to your disputing the narcissism.

I’m seething because, to borrow Sullivan’s line, the pick is so unserious. I’m a strong Obama supporter (and was a strong McCain supporter eight years ago), but I would love nothing more than two (or more) manifestly qualified tickets every four years, because that would be good for the country. McCain could have given us something a lot more along these lines, but instead he seems to be saying that winning news cycles and putting the kibosh on Obama’s convention bounce is more important to him than what his administration would do if he were elected. I wasn’t too afraid of a McCain presidency before (knee-jerk hawkishness aside) but now I am.